Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The prophets give the answer: nations are saved if there is
a small minority, a group of people, who represent what the nation is called to
be. They may be defeated, but their spirit will be a power of resistance
against the evil spirits that are detrimental to the nation. The question of
saving power in the nation is the question of whether there is a minority, even
a small one, which is willing to resist the anxiety produced by propaganda, the
conformity enforced by threat, the hatred stimulated by ignorance. The future
of this country and its spiritual values is not dependent as much on atomic
defence as on the influence such groups will have on the spirit in which the
nation will think and act.

And this is true of mankind as a whole. Its future will be
dependent on a saving group, embodied in one nation or crossing through all
nations. There is saving power in mankind, but there is also the hidden will to
self-destruction. It depends on every one of us which side will prevail. There
is no divine promise that humanity will survive this or the next year. But it
may depend on the saving power effective in you or me, whether it will survive.
(It may depend on the amount of healing and liberating grace which works
through any of us with respect to social justice, racial equality, and
political wisdom.) Unless many of us say to ourselves: through the saving power
working in me, mankind may be saved or lost – it will be lost.

I was interested to read that the road to Emmaus story was actually about disciples who were 'fleeing the scene'. They wanted to get away. Tillich in 'The boundaries of our being' writes the following:

"How shall we think of these disciples? Our first reaction is probably the question - how could they forsake him whom they had called the Messiah, the Christ, the bringer of the new age, whom they had followed after leaving behind everything for his sake? But ... I admired the disciples! For it is they to who we owe the words of our text."

I am reading J. Edgar Hoover 'Official & Confidential' and Hoover was a nasty individual who seems to have spent most of his time snooping on other political figures - rather than catching criminals. There is one story that really got to me.

At the conclusion of the FBI academy course for new agents they had to meet Hoover and shake his hand. This was quite an occasion because if your hand was too sweaty of if you didn't look good he would fire you on the spot. One day after the induction Hoover walked out the door and said to the instructor - 'one of them is a pinhead - fire him'. Unfortunately he didn't know which one and when he measured their heads three of them had the same hat size. He fired all three!

About the blog

I have been writing this blog for over ten years. I tend to be quite eclectic in my range of interests and you will see that the subjects vary from Heaven by George Herbert to Curious George. The main reason I started writing this blog was to get my view across that the reviews we see in the papers come from the literary establishment. Writers who review books by their friends and this does not mean that the reviews are accurate. Along the way I got distracted, I even added some of my artwork but I hope you enjoy reading it. My favourite post is from January 2005 -English literature and geology do mix!- You should search it out.